Motorists have been hit with speeding tickets worth almost £1billion under Labour, a report shows.

But receipts have fallen since police were stopped from keeping part of the money raised from speed cameras.

It suggests that the explosion in the number of cameras was used as a ‘cash cow’ and that forces no longer have an incentive to install them.

Drivers were clobbered with 1.23million tickets in 2008, of which 1.03million were issued by speed cameras, the Home Office report revealed.

The tickets raised more than £73million for the Treasury that year, or £200,000 a day. In total, 16million tickets have been issued since 1997, raising £913million. In 2006, 1.63million tickets were issued by cameras.